OKFestival Mission & Programme

New to the idea of open? Wondering what it is?

In the context of our festival and movement, open means tools, knowledge and information that are freely shared for anyone, anywhere, to use for any purpose. Open has the power to change the world – it increases transparency, distributes power equally through open knowledge, generates equality and creates civic participation and engagement.

And OKFestival? How does that help?

The Open Knowledge Festival gathers together the open movement makers, thinkers, activists and researchers who will enable that change. At OKFestival 2014, a very international crowd will tackle local and global challenges, collaboratively advancing our understanding of the world, exposing inefficiency, challenging inequality and holding governments and companies to account.

OKFestival 2014 Vision

“Open Minds to Open Action”

To create societies where everyone has both access to key information and the ability to use it to understand and shape their lives, we must build knowledge into the heart of all of our activities. This is a big task which requires not just a global shift in mindset, but also that we build the tools and communities to make such a society possible. We invite you to join us at OKFestival 2014 as we consider how to translate Open Minds to Open Action.

To inspire Open Minds, OKFestival 2014 will be a shared, immersive experience – you can learn, listen, brainstorm, make, hack, watch and explore. The festival aims to engage and inspire its international attendees, and in turn your active participation will shape the event and its outcomes. The festival is a place for learning and dialogue, and it is these conversations which will act as the catalysts that enable us to make progress together on the things we care about.

This translation of Open Minds to Open Action requires going beyond conversation. It means building solid partnerships, tools and projects which last beyond the festival. Let’s use this unique opportunity to bring together the open communities from around the world to map out the next steps of the open movement – defining solid goals which will be accomplished at the festival and beyond, co-creating a roadmap for the future. We hope you’ll add your voice and your enthusiasm to this exciting event!

Programme

The programme for the 2014 edition of the festival will be built around sessions submitted by the international open community which enable and create this change from Open Minds to Open Action. Our festival will provide the ideal opportunity for the open movement to come together to co-create the roadmap that will guide its next steps, and will offer multiple opportunities for festival-goers to engage in the discussion and with each other.

Streams

This year, we have removed the traditional focus on narrow topic streams in an attempt to erase knowledge silos and facilitate the cross-exchange of ideas. OKFestival will aim to create learning and collaboration opportunities because we know that change is challenging, but we also believe that the open movement will be stronger if we work together better – and all the topics streams are still included of course, as you’ll see below.

We believe that Knowledge, Tools and Society act as the levers of change. OKFestival 2014 will be based around these three narrative streams; each encompasses a broad range of open topics that the community is passionate about, and by building a programme around three main streams, instead of by topic, OKFestival allows for greater collaboration between attendees and shared progress across the entire open movement.

We fully encourage you to collaborate across streams to find new ways of working, to forge new partnerships and to generate new impact, and have set up a specific mailing list where you can find collaborators and do just that.

Knowledge informs change.

At OKFestival we’ll discuss ways of unlocking, expanding and sharing knowledge. How can we do this more effectively? How can these groups interact?

Topics such as open access, open research data, open educational resources, open science, data journalism and campaigning, data visualisation and literacy may be at home here.

Tools enable change.

We’ll be discussing facilitating the flow of knowledge through tools, as well as building them at the festival. How does open tech work? Where’s it headed? How can we work together to improve tools?

Topics such as non profit technology, open source software, open hardware, design, architecture and urban planning may be at home here.

Society effects change.

How can openness have an impact on our society? How can citizens challenge inequality and hold governments and companies to account? How can societal institutions use open in more constructive, efficient ways?

Topics such as designing institutions, building communities, protecting environments, powering economies through open government, transparency, security, privacy, open tech businesses, open development, open education, open culture, open sustainability and open economy may be at home here.